clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB · error · anyhow::Error

Failed to request token

Error message

Failed to request token

What it means

First network step of `spacetime login` web flow: the CLI POSTs to /api/auth/cli/login/request-token. Transport or HTTP-level failures already propagate as reqwest errors; this specific error fires when the request succeeded (HTTP OK, JSON parsed) but the body says success: false — the server refused to mint a login request token, and the response carries no machine-readable reason for this stage.

Solutions

1. Retry after a short wait (rate limits and transient auth-service issues are the most common cause)
2. Verify you are logging in to a host that actually provides web auth: `spacetime login --server maincloud` for the managed cloud
3. For self-hosted servers, check that the web/auth endpoints are deployed and healthy, and that your CLI version matches the server version

Example fix

# before (self-hosted server without web auth)
spacetime login --server http://localhost:3000
# after
spacetime login --server maincloud

# Verify the host actually serves web auth before login:
curl -sS -o /dev/null -w '%{http_code}\n' -X POST "$HOST/api/auth/cli/login/request-token" \
  | grep -q 200 || echo 'host does not serve web auth — use maincloud'

When it happens

Trigger: The auth endpoint responds 200 with {success: false} (or missing/empty token data that leads success check to fail). Typical server-side causes: auth service degraded, rate-limiting login token issuance, or CLI pointing at a server whose auth routes are misconfigured (e.g. wrong --server host with a web frontend that always 200s).

Common situations: Logging in against a self-hosted/standalone server that does not run the web auth endpoints; maincloud auth incidents or rate limits; DNS/hosts entries pointing the server name at a CDN that returns a JSON 200 error page.

Related errors

• Failed to get token
• Unknown error
• Response data is missing.
• Session token is missing in response.
• Login required to publish to maincloud server

AI-assisted analysis of clockworklabs/SpacetimeDB@6dee26c6ef (2026-08-20). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9d6348284cc2cd36. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/cli/src/subcommands/login.rs:218

        Ok(Some(WebLoginSessionResponseApproved {
            session_token: session_token.clone(),
        }))
    }
}

async fn web_login(remote: &Url, open_browser: bool) -> Result<String, anyhow::Error> {
    let client = reqwest::Client::new();

    let response: WebLoginTokenResponse = client
        .post(remote.join("/api/auth/cli/login/request-token")?)
        .send()
        .await?
        .error_for_status()?
        .json()
        .await?;

    if !response.success {
        return Err(anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to request token"));
    }

    let web_login_request_token = response.data.token.as_str();

    let mut browser_url = remote.join("login/cli")?;
    browser_url
        .query_pairs_mut()
        .append_pair("token", web_login_request_token);
    if open_browser {
        println!("Opening {browser_url} in your browser.");
        if webbrowser::open(browser_url.as_str()).is_err() {
            println!("Unable to open your browser! Please open the URL above manually.");
        }
    } else {
        println!("Open {browser_url} in your browser to finish logging in.");
    }

    println!("Waiting to hear response from the server...");

View on GitHub (pinned to 6dee26c6ef)